Hand blanket stitch diagram.
THE FINAL DESIGN
Although I liked all of the design versions that I came up with, when I
placed the appliques in a line down the side of the pillow, I was most
happy with the way it looked. Because the quilting lines were on an
angle, it was hard to make sure that the hexagons were lined up evenly,
so I used my long ruler and laid it along the left side of the pillow top
so that the 4½” line was along the edge of the pillow top. Then I placed
my hexagons down along the side of the ruler in one line. I then
placed a second line of hexagons beside the first as shown below.
Iron them down
Once you’re happy with how you’ve arranged the hexagons, follow
the manufacturer’s directions on your fusible web product and use a
hot iron to fuse them in place. To prevent the adhesive from marking
up your iron, you can use a Teflon pressing sheet in between your iron
and pillow top.
Machine applique using a blanket stitch
Once all of the hexagons were in place, I used the blanket stitch setting on my machine to stitch along all of the raw edges. To do this on
your pillow, follow these steps:
1. Test your blanket stitch on a scrap fabric to adjust the length and
width until you find the setting that you like best.
2. Bring the bobbin thread up to the top and hold both top and bobbin thread in your left hand as you start to stitch – this will prevent
the bobbin thread from bunching up on the back.
3. Do a couple small straight stitches on the side of the hexagon to
lock your stitches, then set your machine to blanket stitch and stitch
along one side until you g et to the corner.
4. Use your “needle down setting” if you have it, or stop stitching
when the needle is down on the background fabric (just beside
the corner of the hexagon). Pivot and then keep stitching along the
next side. Repeat until you’re all the way around.
5. Do another couple straight stitches at the end to lock your stitches
then clip your top and bottom threads.
Final placement of the applique shapes.
Ironing down the hexagon appliques.
Machine blanket stitching the applique shapes – Put the
needle down at each corner and pivot.
Hand applique vs machine applique
If your sewing machine doesn’t have a nice blanket stitch or you’d just
prefer to do a hand blanket stitch around each hexagon, check out the
instructions on my blog post from last month.
The machine applique is all finished
I ended up using both the Fruitti and Spagetti threads to machine
applique my hexagons and I was really pleased with how nicely the
weight of the thread made the blanket stitches look. I’ve used that
stitch on my machine before and never really liked the result, but the
WonderFil thread makes them look ALMOST as nice as my hand blanket stitch!
Closeup of machine blanket stitch using
Fruitti thread by WonderFil.
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fall 2014
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